Football, modeling and recycled clothes all have one thing in common: Chris Yura, a West Virginia University Business Incubator graduate who recently traveled to Arkansas to speak about SustainU.
“We started working with the Clinton Foundation by doing their Earth Day shirts last year, and we will be doing Haiti relief shirts this year,” Yura said. “So, the dean invited me to speak about my entrepreneurial service with SustainU.”
SustainU, a clothing company that creates apparel for colleges and universities using 100-percent recycled materials and local labor, was founded by Yura in 2009.
Yura spoke at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service about how he grew up in West Virginia, played as a full back at Notre Dame and modeled with Ford Models for five years in New York, which ultimately led to his discovery of the misleading “green” products.
“People are spending money on something they think is a solution, when it’s really the problem,” Yura said during his speech.
He states that even though some tags say the apparel is 100% recycled, it may only be 20%. If the clothing says it’s made in the U.S., it is only required to be knitted in the U.S.
And, he employs local labor to help out the community. The company began with three workers, now that number has risen to 21. Eighteen of those workers came off government assistance to work.
When Yura began his company, he had one license. In one year, his business has expanded to 50 licenses.
“Since the speech, we’ve had a lot of exposure to large companies who are re-thinking their business message and thinking about the sustainability aspect first – not the other way around,” Yura said. “It’s opened a lot of doors for us. Students are listening because they want to change the world, and that’s our mission.”
Yura is added to the long list of accomplished speakers at University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, including Bob Wise, Jesse Ventura and former President Bill Clinton.
Among the political activists, ambassadors and presidents, Yura hopes his lecture will help promote social, environmental and economic sustainability in fashion.
“We are a cause first and a company second,” Yura said. “We want people to take these ideas and plug them into their own use further down the road.”
Posted by Candace Nelson on October 18, 2010 at 1:54 pm in the following categories: SustainU
